Monday, December 26, 2011

This recipe was inspired by one of my favorite salads at Whole Foods hot/cold bar. Recently, I decided to start eating healthier and adding more unprocessed, whole foods into my diet. This is an amazing, delicious and pretty healthy raw salad. It is addictive :-)

Marinated Collard Greens

1 bunch of collard greens (about 8 large leaves), tough stems removed

1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced

1 large red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 Tbs olive oil

2 Tbs Tamari sauce

salt and black pepper to taste

Cut collard greens into 1 inch thick, long strips. Place into a large bowl. Add red bell pepper and onion, and mix well.

In a small bowl combine lemon juice, olive oil, Tamari sauce, and minced garlic. Pour over the collard greens and veggies. Using your hands massage the dressing into the veggies well.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Soyummi Foods contacted me a few weeks ago to see if I would be interested in doing a review of their vegan puddings and a giveaway on my blog. I was happy to try their products and even happier to do a giveaway that will have 3 winners :-) Each winner will receive two coupons for free Soyummi puddings. I redeemed my coupons for dark Chocolate Pudding and Rice pudding which were the only two options that my local Whole Foods offered. Soyummi offers other flavors, such as Tapioca pudding, Cherry pudding and Lime pudding. Each box of Soyummi puddings contains 4 individual pudding cups.

Soyummi puddings are minimally processed. They are made with all natural and organic ingredients. They are GMO free, Vegan, Gluten free, low in fat, and they contain natural prebiotics and fiber. They are sweetened with beet syrup.

Pretty healthy snack or an afternoon treat :-)

The Dark Chocolate Pudding was very fluffy and tasted like a rich dark chocolate dessert.

The Rice pudding was my favorite! Creamy, thick pudding with nice pieces of yummy rice. The taste was beautiful, strong vanilla with a slight hint of lemon. I will be buying this pudding very soon.

I added some fresh pomegranate seeds to one cup of Rice pudding for a nice after dinner dessert.

Do you want to win some delicious, vegan puddings? Soyummi has generously offered to give 2 free coupons to 3 giveaway winners. This giveaway is only open to USA addresses only.

You have several ways to enter this giveaway. I will pick 3 random comments on January 6th 2012, Friday evening. If you want extra entries, you have to leave a comment for each entry option to count, if you leave one big comment with everything in it, it will only count as one entry. The more comments, the better the chances are to win.

Mandatory entry:

# Leave a comment telling me which Soyummi pudding would you like to try the most.

Extra entries:

# Become a follower (member) of this blog and leave a comment that you did or that you already were a follower

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Tea, tea, tea! As you can see from these pictures, I am a tea fanatic :-) This is the majority of my tea collection. As most of my readers know, I don't do well with caffeine (you can read my story here), therefore I mostly have fruit, herbal, Rooibos or decaf tea varieties.

I love buying tea, exchanging tea with friends and getting tea as presents. I prefer tea bags since they are so much easier to deal with and more portable, but any good loose tea makes me happy, too. I drink hot tea all year long. I drink my black decaf and black decaf Earl Grey tea with a splash of almond milk. I also love my Pero and Teeccino coffee alternatives.

When I lived in Prague I used to hang out in Tea Rooms and Tea shops several times a week. Unfortunately in Atlanta I had to create my own Tea Room at home because there are no tea rooms around here.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Manna Organics Bread giveaway winner was comment number 7 :-) Congratulations to Marissa Rath! Thank you everyone who entered the giveaway. Stay tuned for vegan puddings giveaway soon! Marissa, please, email me you address so I can forward it to Manna Organics and they will ship your prize. Enjoy the bread! czech.vegan (at) yahoo.com I used www.random.org to pick the winning comment number.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

This is an easy, healthy and comforting winter dinner that I sometimes make.

Winter Bulgur and Vegetable Medley

1 Tbs olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

6-8 large kale leaves, stems removed and leaves torn into small pieces

2 cups sliced mushrooms

1 large bell pepper (red looks pretty in this recipe), top removed, seeded and diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup bulgur, uncooked

3 cups vegetable broth

1 tsp paprika

salt and black pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium hight heat. Add onion and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add bell pepper and mushrooms and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic, kale, paprika, bulgur and broth. Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium low heat and simmer 15-20 minutes, or until most of the liquid is absorbed and bulgur is tender, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Since I cannot have caffeine I often enjoy fruit, herbal, Rooibos or decaf black teas.

I have been a Rishi Tea lover for years so I was very excited and grateful when I received a package with samples of their organic, caffeine free tea blends.

Their botanical and Rooibos teas are beautiful, delicious and aromatic. From my personal experience many of these botanical tea blends are great for digestion (especially as a heartburn and nausea relief), relaxation, or as a refreshing energizing coffee alternative. I like the addition of natural essential oils in some of their teas. The essential oils give the tea very strong aroma and flavor.

TURMERIC GINGER

The intoxicating, lemony aroma hit me as soon as I opened the sample bag. It made my mouth water. The aroma almost reminded me of fancy, citrusy bath salts that I love. This tea has a spicy, full-bodied flavor with pungent ginger, zesty lemon and sweet licorice notes. I love the addition of turmeric which is a great anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory herb. This tea woke up all my taste buds and gave me a burst of energy.

CHAMOMILE MEDLEY

This tea is full of pretty chamomile flowers, just like the ones that I used to gather and dry back in the Czech Republic. This is very calming, lemon and honey-like tea with a gentle touch of spearmint. A wonderful evening, relaxing tea blend.

CINNAMON PLUM

Wow! This tea is heavenly! This is how I imagine a fairy tale garden to smell like. Very sweet, aromatic, plum tea with a beautiful touch of succulent currants, warm cinnamon and a hint of rum. I wish I could capture the essence of this tea and bottle it into a perfume. This is a perfect autumn tea!

PEPPERMINT ROOIBOS

When I opened the bag, the strong minty aroma woke up my senses. While brewing this tea I noticed a strong, pleasant aroma from the essential oils of bergamot and peppermint. This tea was very minty, even thought the bergamot mellowed down the peppermint a bit. Very refreshing blend that made my mouth tingle with peppermint sensation.

ROOIBOS

Smooth, mahogany infusion with sweet, nutty and honey-like notes.

UNITY

This is a lovely combination of lemony, minty flavors, warm and pungent ginger, beautiful cardamon, sweet licorice and a a hint of spicy black pepper. This tea has a wonderful lemony aroma with peppery notes.

BLUEBERRY ROOIBOS

The candy-like aroma of this tea is amazing! Sweet, juicy berries with smooth Rooibos. I love the addition of real wild blueberries and schizandra berries. This luscious tea had a lovely blueberry aftertaste that stayed in my mouth for a while.

What a beautiful symphony of flavors! Pleasantly sweet basil and licorice root, with refreshing peppermint notes and a lovely touch of cardamon and clove.

I loved the mint, basil and clove aroma while brewing this tea.

They also offer black, green, Chai, Oolong, Pu-erh, white and Yerba Mate teas, along with more options of Rooibos and botanical tea blends. I used to enjoy their Yerba Mate, black and green teas before I had to eliminate caffeine from my life.

About Me

I am a Czech Vegan living in America. I am working on my first vegan cookbook. On this blog I share my recipes, my thoughts on vegan living, vegan products reviews and other fun things. Two of my recipes were published in the Vegetarian Times magazine, as winning recipes in their recipe contests (November/December 2010 issue and September 2012 issue) and another recipe was published by Eating Well in the cookbook EatingWell Fast & Flavorful Meatless Meals: 150 Healthy Recipes Everyone Will Love (2011), and Eating Well magazine (August 2012 issue).
I love cooking and baking, running, and I enjoy veganizing Czech and American recipes. I am an animal rescuer, chocoholic and a tea lover.
I would like to mention that some of the products that I talk about on my blog were generously given to me with no obligation to write a positive review. If you make vegan products and want them to be featured and reviewed on my blog, let me know. You can email me at czechvegan (at) yahoo.com. My old email address czech.vegan (at) yahoo.com was compromised so I can no longer access it.